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Here’s this idea I have for what I think would be a badass miniseries (or, I guess, regular TV series- I just said miniseries because they often have better budgets for special effects) or book series. I’ve thrown this idea around in my head, but for the life of me I can’t seem to think of how to write it out for real. Or, maybe I’m just intimidated by the scope.

In any case, something I’m really preoccupied with is the idea of these … metaphysical?… bombs. Like, the bomb explodes and it changes the nature of the world. I don’t know how science would make a bomb that rips through reality, but the concept of it is so interesting to me. This series starts out with such a bomb exploding, and so does another idea that I have that I’ll have to tell you about another time.

Anyways, so the story opens on a girl and her three younger brothers (all are in their late teens to early 20’s). They live with their Grandparents who, like any decent retired couple, have a camper. The girl also has an emotionally abusive boyfriend, who has made some kind of imminent threat to her freedom. Unrelated to the boyfriend, she also suffers from panic attacks and anxiety. She sees no way out until, out of nowhere, these purple, heatless explosions fill the air. Things and people disappear where the explosions take place. Somewhere, scientists have initiated a chain reaction that destroys our reality, replacing it with an as yet intangible something else.

The sister gathers her brothers and they take the camper to get out of the city. Why don’t they take the grandparents? No fucking clue. Maybe the grandparents are away visiting family. Anyways, the girl partly sees this as an opportunity to definitely escape her evil, controlling boyfriend, and partly as a way to protect her younger brothers.

Over the course of the next few days, whole cities wink out of existence. Technology begins to fail- as in it just doesn’t work anymore. Cell phones are useless, electric lights won’t switch on. Some things still function, like batteries, but in general, things that rely on electric currents don’t work. The survivors cobble together new towns from the ashes, and the whole country takes on a Wild West type feel. The siblings, having left their home behind and believing they have nothing to go back to, try to find a new place to stay.

Obviously, the first town they stop in is not well established. It’s just a group of survivors trying to figure out how to keep surviving with what they’ve got, while a gang of hooligans sees this as their opportunity to seize control of the area. The brothers and sister decide to help out the good guys, thinking this might be their new home. This doesn’t have to be that stupendous of a venture. The main point of it is to show that the sister is a leader with a strong sense of justice and self sacrifice. The secondary point is that during this miniature civil war, it starts to come out that some people are getting magical powers. Yes, this new reality that has melded with ours is one of fantasy.

The brothers also begin showing signs of power in the next episode, but they aren’t all powers like you typically imagine, and they don’t have control over them yet. The youngest brother has the power to see the past. What? you say. That’s dumb. But I tell you it is not dumb. It means that as his powers become stronger, he will always know what anyone he meets has done in the past. He is the most accurate historian, and able to solve crimes just by meeting the criminal. He will actually be our narrator, since he is both part of the story and has an omniscient view of the events he has experienced. The middle brother has the power to slip out of memory. He can move unnoticed through a crowd. It can be like he never existed if he wishes it. The oldest brother can set fires with his mind. This is a more typical power. He can’t control it when he’s really angry, though. The sister, it appears for a long time, does not have powers. Eventually, after they settle down in one town, we discover that she does indeed have a power. She gets anxiety attacks, as I mentioned before. One day, after fighting of some anxiety (she’s stressed because the town is having some trouble with having enough provisions and fresh water to feed everyone, and she doesn’t know how to help), she begins to get a really bad panic attack. As she does, everything within a one mile radius of her location begins to wither and die. The grass turns black. The wood of the houses rots and collapses. Water becomes rancid. The people aren’t killed, nor the animals, but their food molds and their tools rust. The camper is fine. The destruction starts a hundred feet out from wherever her location is. (By the way, passive powers like the two younger siblings don’t come with unfortunate side effects, but dangerous powers like the two oldest have come with physical consequences- the fire powers leave the brother with insatiable hunger and thirst whose strength and duration depend on the fire he created, the girl’s powers come with panic and anxiety). She can’t control her powers. She never finds a way to control them, except to try to control her anxiety. Even when she does have a good grip on herself, destruction still follows her if she stays in one place too long. Therefor, she is condemned to wander, lest she harms good people. Another side effect is that she can’t be killed. She tries to kill herself to protect everyone she might hurt, but it can’t be done.

Eventually, her evil boyfriend from before is the main nemesis that they have to fight. He sucks out people’s life force (not their lives, he doesn’t kill them, he just drains everything out of him and it can take years for them to recover). It gives him the appearance of handsomeness and happiness, but when it wears off he is revealed to be progressively more ugly and miserable.

I don’t have that many more details. Basically, in my mind, the new reality creates some people who have moderate powers, and others who are like Gods. This girl, who wants nothing more than to help and protect people, finds herself cursed with powers that she can’t control that bring death and destruction to everything around her. This kind of follows her journey to becoming this kind Goddess of Death, and her attempts to find ways to stop her powers, or at least control them.

It’s a pretty grandiose scheme, on my part. I completely don’t know what to do with it.